In gaming machines, an award is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or symbol combination and on the amount of the wager (e.g., the higher the wager, the higher the award). Generally, symbols or symbol combinations that are less likely to occur provide higher awards. Secondary or bonus games usually provide an additional award to the player. Secondary or bonus games usually do not require an additional wager by the player to be activated and are generally activated by a triggering symbol or a triggering symbol combination in the primary or base game. For instance, bonus symbols occurring in specific patterns on reels of a slot machine may trigger a secondary bonus game.
Certain awards may also be available to multiple gaming machines or groups of gaming machines, such as progressive awards. In one form, a progressive award is an award amount that includes an initial amount funded by a casino and an additional amount funded through a portion of each wager made on the progressive award associated with the gaming machine. For example, one percent of each wager on the primary game of the gaming machine may be allocated to the progressive award or progressive award fund.
Certain types of game play data from gaming machines are often stored in gaming machines such as games won, credits remaining, prizes paid out. Such data may be necessary to calculate revenue and profits, to calculate a machine's hold percentage, reconcile accounting, and to address disputes that players may have with a casino over whether or not a winning combination occurred, the amount of payout due, and the like. Further, casino operators and/or gaming regulators may sometime need the same or related information for other reasons such as examining the sequence of events prior to a malfunction, verifying the electronic “signature” of software and/or firmware; reviewing the complete history of past games, and the like.
Among the types of commonly preserved data is so-called “critical data” or “critical game information,” which must be maintained by casinos. Such data as game state, credits bet, number of lines bet, credits remain, random number generator results, number of games played, and the like may be stored as simple text and/or graphics inside the slot machine. In some cases, entire frames of video data may be captured and stored. Gaming regulators, such as the Nevada Gaming Commission, may require that gaming machines save critical data for a certain length of time or a set number of games before allowing older critical data to be overwritten or purged from a gaming machine or network server. To this end, gaming machine manufacturers sometimes store such data in battery-backed non-volatile random access memory. This allows critical data to be preserved even in the event of a loss of primary power, during transport or relocation, or while the machine is intentionally turned off for service.
In the recent years, casino games where multiple players sharing a bonus game was also introduced. Typically, five to eight slot machines surround a shared bonus screen. Occasionally, when the bonus game is triggered, and one or more players may optionally participate in the bonus game. However, the bonus game lasts for only a few seconds, and the passive player(s) do not interact with the bonus game. Without interaction with the bonus game, without interaction between players, and with the brief nature of the group bonus game and the small number of players in a group participating simultaneously, the group bonus game is the same as the single player game, and the critical data is stored locally at the slot machine.